By Our Reporter
Chinese Ambassador Zhou Pingjian has commended Egerton University for offering students Agricultural courses that can propel the country towards food stability.
Speaking while awarding select varsity students the Chinese Ambassador Scholarship at the University, the Ambassador recounted how China took agriculture seriously and used technology to produce food for local and commercial use.
“In our childhood, we could go hungry. Most young people do not know how it was difficult in our younger days, but we worked hard and grew our economy to 18% of the global GDP cumulative average,” he said.
The ambassador said that they will continue supporting the education and agricultural sectors so that Kenya can grow her food basket.
The beneficiary students were feted by the Ambassador who issued them with certificates.
University Vice Chancellor (VC) Prof. Isaac Kibwage took the opportunity to ask the students to work hard as a return on investment made by the Embassy.
The VC took the Ambassador for a tour of the Ksh100 Million Road and the Belt Molecular Laboratory in the Faculty of Agriculture-CHS Department.
The Laboratory with state-of-the-art equipment is used extensively in advanced Crop and Livestock Research by staff, students-CESAAM, TADEV among other areas of research and partners like KALRO and other Universities.
“We sometimes allow other Universities to come and use this equipment in their studies and we charge a fee for maintenance purposes,” said Professor Richard Mulwa, the head of the Lab.
Prof. Kibwage appreciated the support by the Chinese government in building the Agro Science Park office complex and provision of Irrigation facilities which supported the development of new crop varieties.
The support at the Agro-Science Park also facilitated Farmer-technology Transfer especially the China-Egerton Demonstration of technologies and hosted visiting Chinese research collaborators.
In order to advance research, Prof Kibwage invited the visiting envoy to support the University is acquisition of modern technology and equipment to be used across the faculties of Science, Agriculture, Education, Natural Resources and for improving Agro-Science park technologies.
